


Before You Understand

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Little Miss Sunshine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1631732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olive thinks Uncle Frank is weird, but the okay kind of weird. (Subtle Frank/Richard.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before You Understand

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to Wicked Wonder for the beta!
> 
> Written for Bonster

 

 

Uncle Frank is weird, but he's the okay kind of weird. Not _fun_ weird, like Pop Rocks, but _okay_ weird, like Necco wafers. Or Dad's jazz. Dwayne says that's why he's staying with you for a while, "because he's found his own kind." You ask Mom what that means and she doesn't say anything. According to her, Uncle Frank needs some time to get back on his feet, but you know that can't be it. He can walk just fine.

At first, you think it'll be like when your cousins come over and everyone gets to eat at restaurants and go to the movies and stay up late all the time, like a vacation you don't have to sit in the car for. That doesn't happen. It turns out that when your extended family moves in, they become your regular family, and you only get to do your regular family stuff.

The only thing that changes is that Dwayne talks now, but that's okay. You missed him.

*

When Uncle Frank moves in, Dad fights with him almost every day. Not big fights, just little dinner table ones. Nothing bad ever happens, either. Dad just sort of talks loudly until he gets bored, and Uncle Frank finishes his food quietly and excuses himself. Dad stays at the table and reminds you and Dwayne to learn from all this. You don't know what he's talking about, but you can tell he doesn't want you to ask.

Mom usually goes outside for a little while after that.

*

Uncle Frank is writing a book. When you ask if you can see it, he says no, but Mom makes him change his mind, so one afternoon he sets up his laptop on the kitchen table for you. You're a very advanced reader, but you only make it halfway down the screen before you have to admit you don't get it.

"It's a book about another book," he explains. "It helps if you've read anything by a guy named Marcel Proust."

"Do you have any of his books?" you ask him.

He smiles a little. "I have several."

"Can I borrow one?"

"When you're older." He starts to get up.

"Why are you writing a book about a book?" you ask. "Why don't you write your own book?"

He sits down again and thinks about that for a minute.

"You know, Olive," he says finally, "some people say all they've all been written."

You shake your head. "I don't think so. I think you should write your own book."

He smiles a little more. "I'll keep that in mind."

Dad's writing a book, too, but you're not as interested in seeing that one. He already talks about it all the time.

*

Uncle Frank doesn't stay in Dwayne's room. You think that would've been fun, like having a sleepover every night. Probably way more fun than where he's sleeping now, in Grandpa's old room. You don't know how much it still looks like Grandpa's room, though. Maybe he's moved the old chair or taken the magazine pictures off the wall or changed that lightbulb that's been broken since forever. You don't go down that hall very much, even if it means you have to wait extra long for the other bathroom.

Mom asked you about that, once. You said you just didn't like it, and she didn't say anything about it again.

*

You don't like Dad's jazz very much, either, but Uncle Frank must, because the two of them listen to it a _lot._ Mom says it's because it's the one thing they can talk about without fighting. They don't seem to talk about the musicians or anything, though. They just put it on the stereo in the den and work on different couches.

You can hear it all over the house, but you don't mind. If it gets too loud, you just put on your headphones and listen to the same CD you've had in your player since the pageant.

*

Maybe it's the jazz and maybe they just got tired, but after a while, Dad and Uncle Frank don't seem to fight as much anymore. Instead, they just watch TV together and talk about the news and the President and the way things were when they were kids. You guess they're friends now, except in that grownup way where they don't do anything fun together.

*

You're in the kitchen eating a grape popsicle when Dad tells Mom he's done with his book.

"Congratulations," she says, not looking up from the bills.

"No," Dad says. "I didn't finish it. I'm _done._ "

Mom sets her pen down and smiles a real smile.

*

Uncle Frank doesn't tell anyone he's leaving until the day before he goes. Dwayne doesn't show it, but you know he's upset. He liked Uncle Frank. Mom's sad, too, but she says she's glad he feels ready. Dad just nods and goes to take out the recycling. Dad isn't very good at this stuff.

You make a goodbye card. Uncle Frank promises you he'll put it on his new desk just as soon as he has one.

That night, you hear him and Mom talking in the hall. She keeps asking him if he's prepared, or if he has something called a safety net, and he says yes, yes he is, yes he does. It sounds kind of like he's going camping, but he seems sad. Then Mom says something quiet, but you can't hear it very well because you're being secret. You're pretty sure they've already stopped talking and gone to bed when Uncle Frank says something about repeating the same mistakes. Mom asks what he means. You don't hear anything after that.

The next morning, you wake up late, and Uncle Frank is already gone.

*

A few weeks later, you see Dad reading a very thick book with a black-and-white picture of a guy with a mustache on the cover. "The collected works of Marcel Proust," he tells you. "He was a French writer from the early twentieth century."

You take in this information and, grabbing a _Junie B. Jones_ from the coffee table, curl up on the other side of the couch to do some reading of your own. A few minutes later, Mom leans in from the kitchen with a phone call for dad, and he sets the Marcel Proust book on the armrest and gets up. When you're sure he's gone, you pick it up and set it on your lap. It's old and heavy, and the letters are very small. The pages are crinkled, which you're not supposed to do, and there's writing all over it, which you're _really_ not supposed to do, but Uncle Frank's name is written inside the cover, so it must be okay.

Remembering, you decide to borrow it. You don't think you're quite ready yet, so you tuck it under your bed for now. You'll probably be at least twelve before you understand.

 


End file.
